The Call of Grace

Q: What does the Bible say about God's call to sinners?

The Bible reveals that God calls sinners to reason together and offers forgiveness and mercy through Christ. In Isaiah 1:18-20, the Lord calls sinners to come and reason with Him, emphasizing His willingness to forgive and cleanse even the deepest sins. This call signifies God's grace and mercy, inviting those who are burdened by their sins to find solace in His promise of redemption. Jesus exemplified this tender call throughout His ministry, reaching out to the broken and the outcast, demonstrating that no one is too far gone to receive His grace.

Q: How do we know that God's grace is sufficient for all sins?

The sufficiency of God's grace is affirmed in Scripture, showing that no sin is beyond His ability to forgive. God’s grace is shown to be all-sufficient through numerous biblical affirmations. In Isaiah, the Lord assures us that even if our sins are as scarlet, they can be made as white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). This promise demonstrates that nothing stands in the way of God's mercy for those willing to repent and believe. The New Testament continues this theme, highlighting that grace is not earned but freely given to anyone who comes to Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9). The grace that God offers extends to all sin, save the rejection of Him, which is the unpardonable sin.

Q: Why is it important for Christians to understand God's mercy?

Understanding God's mercy is essential as it shapes our relationship with Him and informs how we extend grace to others. God's mercy is foundational to the Christian faith, revealing His character as loving and forgiving. As demonstrated in Isaiah, God's call to sinners is a testament to His desire not to condemn but to restore (Isaiah 1:18-20). Recognizing our own need for mercy helps us to grasp the depth of God's grace and encourages us to reflect that same mercy toward others (Matthew 5:7). It transforms our interactions, prompting a spirit of forgiveness and compassion rather than judgment. This understanding fosters a love-driven community that mirrors Christ's grace.

Q: What does it mean to come to God for forgiveness?

Coming to God for forgiveness means acknowledging our sins and trusting in His grace to cleanse and restore us. To come to God for forgiveness, as described in Isaiah 1:18, involves a humble acknowledgment of our guilt before a holy God. This is not merely a superficial confession but a heartfelt admission of our sinful state and a cry for mercy. God promises to forgive those who earnestly seek Him, making our sins as white as snow. It is a transformative act where we exchange our brokenness for His wholeness, grounded in faith in Jesus' sacrificial love. This approach to God calls for a genuine willingness to disown our self-righteousness and embrace His redemptive work in our lives.

our transgressions against God
Almighty. And we don't need to be reminded
of our sins and shortcomings and our failures and our many
offenses against the Holy God. But if I could come among all
you sinners tonight and declare unto you glad tidings good news
to the poor. If I could come with a message
of healing for the brokenhearted, and liberty for the captives,
freedom from the law and its curse, and the good news of no condemnation,
no judgment, and no hell, and the acceptable year of our
God in the beloved, and comfort, genuine, real comfort for those
who mourn over sin. And if I could give you beauty
for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment
of praise instead of fear, and assure you of being a tree of
righteousness planted by the Lord by the river of life for
his glory. Would you hear me? Would you hear me? Well, you
know I can do all that I said. I can fulfill all that I promised.
Because that's exactly what our Lord came to do. read it. Isaiah tells us about it and
Luke tells us about it. That's what our Lord came to
do. Now I'm going to use a passage tonight from Isaiah chapter 1,
a passage of scripture that is most familiar to everybody here.
We've read it, heard it read, and I preach from it. I'm going to use several verses,
but my text for this message is verse 18 through 20. And here
the Lord uses some plain, plain words at the beginning, especially
of each verse. Verse 18, Isaiah 1. One- and
two-syllable words, so plain, so simple, so easy to understand. Come now, not later, this is
not something to be settled later. Come now and let us reason together,
saith the Lord. Now, the Lord calls us to a conference. He calls us to consider some
things. And the subject, the purpose
of this conference is our sins, you see, because that's what
he talks about next. He says, though your sins be
as scarlet. Now, let's come. Let's come now. Sayeth the Lord, and let's reason
together. We're going to talk about your
sins. That's the subject. Not do we have them. That's already
been settled. But what are we going to do about
them? Come now, saith the Lord, and let's do some reasoning. It's not do we have sins. We
know we do. But what are we going to do about
them? Let's reason about it. Let's talk about it. Let's consider
it. And then at the beginning of
verse 19, plain, simple, everyday, one- and two-syllable words.
Now, if you be willing to come and to hear. If you be willing and willing
to obey, you'll eat the good of the land. You'll eat the fat
of the land. That's a promise. It'll be well with your soul,
if you're willing. And then here's some plain words
in verse 20, just simple, everyday. People say, I can't understand
the Bible. Yeah, you can too. Verse 20, but if you refuse,
if you won't come and you won't reason with me and consider what
I have to say, listen to me, hear me, and believe me, and
obey me, if you refuse and rebel, you're going to be destroyed.
You're going to be devoured with the sword. Now these words here,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. And I thought as I read those
verses, now this is not a church conference, this is a personal
conference between me and the Lord, between you and the Lord.
You come. You come. This is not a cause
for argument. This is not a matter to debate. This is God's call of grace.
Come now. Come right now, and let's sit
down, and let's reason together. Now, if you'd be willing, you'd
be willing to come, you'd be willing to listen, you'd be willing
to hear. It'll be good. It'll be well for you. Now, if
you refuse, it's not going to be good. Now, whether or not,
as I preach this message tonight, whether or not it's another general
call or an effectual call depends on the response. In Acts 28 it
says Paul preached to them, some believed and some didn't believe.
And that's the way it always is. Some believe, some don't
believe. And then in Acts 13.48 it says
when Paul preached to the Gentiles, they were glad. And they received
the word of God. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. That's an effectual call. As
many as were ordained to life, they believed. Now my first question
is this. This call of grace. Who calls?
Who is this? Who is this? It says, come now
and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Saith the Lord. Now, I know, and perhaps I lean
maybe too often too far in this direction, and I know that to
be true to my God and to his word, I must faithfully proclaim
his holy character. And I know the one word that
best describes the character of God is holy, holy, holy. I know that. God is holy. God is just. God is righteous. God dwelleth in a light to which
no man, no sinful man can approach. Holy and reverend is his name. But my friends, the God who speaks
here speaks in love. He speaks in love. He speaks
in mercy. He speaks in grace. His name
is Jehovah. You know what Jehovah is? God
my Savior. Jehovah. God is love. Don't be afraid to say that.
God commended his love toward us. But God who is rich in love
and mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us. God is
love. And God is mercy. He's plenteous
in mercy. He delights to show mercy. He
takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. And God is gracious. He told Moses his greatest glory
is his grace. That's right. Moses said, Lord,
show me your glory. Demonstrate your glory. Reveal
your glory to me. And he said, all right, Moses,
I'll show you my glory. My glory is my goodness. I'll
cause all my goodness, goodness, goodness, to pass before you,
I will be gracious, I will be merciful. When God Almighty's
judgment and wrath would fall upon the days of Noah, it says,
but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Grace. We're not told to come to Mount
Sinai. We don't come to Mount Sinai.
With its darkness and its lightning and its thunder and its smoke
and its It's fearfulness. We come to Mount Zion to the
mediator of a better covenant. We come to the friend of sinners. Did you know that? Christ is
the friend of sinners. I listened to a preacher. I took
my nap this afternoon. And then I got up and I went
in and sat down in front of the television and turned on a preacher. And my eye was he ranting and
raving. And he was so mad at that congregation,
and he said, you think I'm tough? You think we preachers are tough?
Well, you meet God and find out how tough He is. My God is tender. He's tender. That's right. He's kind. You watch Him. Watch
Him now. There He is. My God, Jehovah. the Lord Jesus, walking towards
his destination, and he goes through Samaria. And he comes
there to a well, and being weary with his journey, he sits down
on the well, and he tells his disciples to go on into town
and get something to eat. And he sits there on the well,
and he's waiting for somebody. Not to be tough, but to be tender. Not to condemn them, but to forgive
them. He sits there on that well. Here
comes a woman, all by herself, been married five times, was
living with a man that was not her husband. I'm sure under the
judgment and condemnation of the priest, of the rabbis, of
the Pharisees, of the Sanhedrin, and of all her neighbors, She
didn't come with anybody. She came alone. And she walks
up to the well and there he sits. And he speaks to her. She doesn't
dare speak to him. She doesn't know who he is. And
he speaks to her and he said, give me a drink. And she was
startled and she stepped back and she said, you're a Jew. You're
a Jew. Why would a Jew ask drink of
me, a Samaritan." Don't you know the Jews have nothing to do with
the Samaritans? He said, if you knew who asked
you for a drink, you'd ask me and I'd give you living water. That ain't too tough, is it? That's not too tough. That's
pretty tender, isn't it? If you knew the gift of God,
if you just knew how gracious He is, You'd ask me. I'd give
you living water. And then I see him standing again
one day, and these Pharisees, oh, these religious fellows hated
him. That's one of the charges they brought against him. He
was a friend of sinners. And I see him standing one day,
and here they come, the whole bunch of them. They had a plan.
They had a plan. They had a plan. They were going
to try to turn the people against him, by setting him in opposition
against Moses' law, because they knew his friendliness to sinners.
So they found them a woman caught in the act of adultery. And they
had her one on one arm and one on another, and they were dragging
her down the street, you know, trying to, wait, wait, Master,
wait, we've got something to present to you. And they brought
this woman and threw her down at his feet. And they said to
him, And they had this diabolical plan. They thought they had him
between a rock and a hard place. They thought now if he sides
with her, he's against Moses. And if he sides with Moses, Moses
says stoner. That's what the law says. Adultery,
stoner. And if he sides with Moses and
we stoner, the people are going to turn against him. So either
way, we got him. If he sides with her, we got
him. Because he's rejecting Moses. If he sides with Moses, we got
him, because the people will turn against him. All these publicans
and harlots standing around here will say, well, he's just like
the rest of them, and walk away. So they threw her down, and they
said, we found her in adultery. Now Moses says, stone her. What
do you say? He looked at them, and then what
did he do? He stooped right down there beside her. He identified
with her. That's what he came to do, be
numbered with the transgressors. And he took his finger, the same
finger that wrote that law, same finger that said, Thou shalt
not commit adultery. That's right. Holy God. He took
that same finger and began to write in the sand. I don't know
what he wrote, nobody else does. But then he stood up and he looked
at those fellows and said, he that is without sin, let him
cast the first stone. Go ahead. And then he stooped
back down and began to write in the sand. And they stood there
with their rocks. He had already picked them up
because this thing was settled. And they stood there with their
rocks and they watched him writing. And they began to drop them from
the eldest to the youngest and walked away. And the scripture
says, left him alone with the woman. And then he turned to
her and he said, woman, said, where are your accusers? Doth no man condemn thee? She
said, no man, Lord, neither did I. Go and send no more. Is that tough? That's pretender. And then I see him coming out
of Jericho, and I see him stop under a tree, and all these people
around, he looks up the tree, and there is a publican, a tax
collector named Zacchaeus. Boy, I tell you, you talk about
under the table, you talk about percentages, you talk about two-timing,
you talk about finagling, you talk about cheating, that's a
publican, tax collector. And he looks up into that tree.
He said, Zacchaeus, come down. Come on down. And old Zacchaeus slid down that
tree, and my Lord looked at him and said, today salvation has
come to this house. That's pretending. See him go to the land of the
Gadarenes and find the demoniac and restore him to his right
mind. See him hanging on a cross and reach out to a dying thief.
A thief. The same hand that wrote, Thou
shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, reached out in tenderness
and compassion and took him by the hand and led him into paradise,
washed in the blood. I tell you, and Peter, this impulsive,
wayward disciple, he could gum up, mess up everything that he
had anything to do with. You know what I'm talking about.
Every time he opened his mouth, he just said the wrong thing.
He was an expert at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
And finally he sat by a fireside and to save his hide, and I'd
have done the same thing probably. No probably to it. I would have
done the same thing. And they said, you one of them?
He said, I'm not. They said, you are. Your speech
betrays you. Well, he said, I'll cuss a little
bit, so he won't think I'm one of them. He said, I don't know
that man. Now, that's the time to get tough,
isn't it? Here's the time for my Lord. But when he arose from the grave
and that woman came to the tomb, he said to her, now you go find
my disciples and tell them to wait for me. Peter. Give him a special invitation.
A special invitation. He's the only name our Lord called.
Go tell my disciples. I go before them. But now, tell
Peter. Oh, my friends, His greatest
glory is His goodness. His grace. His mercy. Who's speaking
here? Who's calling here? It's the
Lord of mercy. Mercies. Mercy. Grace and mercy
flows from his lips, drips from his fingers. I ask you, when
is the shepherd most glorified? When is the shepherd most glorified?
When the shepherd leads the sheep by still waters, or leads them
into pastures of green, or stands and protects them from the wolf
or the bat? I tell you when he's most glorified. When at the expense of his own
suffering he'll go out yonder into the wilderness and hunt
that one lost sheep, and come back with that sheep on his shoulders,
scarred and marred and torn by the thorns and briars of the
wilderness, and say, Rejoice with me, my sheep was lost, and
I found him. When is the Father most glorified? When he's passing out an inheritance?
When is the father most glorified? When he's ruling over his sons
and assigning them chores to perform? When is the father most
glorified? I'll tell you when he's most
glorified, when he stands by the door and looks yonder across
the way waiting for a prodigal son who's broken his heart and
sinned against him to come home so he can kiss him and forgive
him and restore him. That's when he's most glorified. And that's when you and I are
most like our Lord, when we have that same tender heart and forgiving
spirit. That's right. The songwriter
puts it this way, Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song. It's the joy of my heart. It's
the boast of my tongue. Thy free grace alone from the
first to the last has won my affection and bound my heart
fast. Without Thy sweet mercy I could
not live here. Sin would reduce me to utter
despair. But through Thy free goodness
my spirit is revived and He that first made me still keeps me
alive. Thy mercy is more than a match
for my heart. which wonders to feel its own
hardness depart. Broken, Lord, by thy goodness,
I fall to the ground, and I weep to the praise of the mercy I've
found. The door of thy mercy stands
open all day to the poor, to the needy, who walk by the way. And no sinner shall ever be empty,
sent back, who comes seeking mercy for Jesus' sake. Thy mercy in Jesus exempts me
from hell, its glories I'll sing, its wonders I'll tell. T'was
Jesus my Savior who hung on that tree and opened the channel of
mercy for me. So, great Father of mercies,
thy goodness I own, and the covenant of grace of thy crucified Son. All praise to the Spirit whose
calling divine makes mercy. and pardon and righteousness. Who calls? Come now. He's not calling you to judgment.
He's calling you to forgiveness. Come now. He's not calling you
to wrath. He's calling you to pardon. Come
now. And let's reason. All right,
watch this now. Whom does he call? Look at this.
Come now. Let us reason together. Though
your sins be as scarlet Oh, that's in red like crimson. That's somebody said double-dyed.
Double-dyed. Oh, how wretched they are. I know there may be people here
who don't own that they're sinners. There may be people here who
claim a goodness which they do not possess. There may be people
here who compare themselves with themselves. and justify themselves
before God. But the Lord is not speaking
to them. He speaks here to real sinners whose sins are as scarlet. And he describes them in these
preceding verses. Look back at verse 2. He says
they are ungrateful. Verse 2, he said, Hear, O heavens,
give ear, O earth, listen to the charge the Lord has spoken.
I brought up children. They rebelled against me. They
are ungrateful. In verse 3, he says they're lower
than the beast. He said at least the ox acknowledges
his owner, and the ass, the dumb ass knows his master's crib. But they're dumber than the beast.
They won't acknowledge me. And then verse 4 says they're
laden with iniquity. Isn't that ass heady? The word
laden is headiness. They're heady with iniquity.
He said in verse 4, they're a seed of evildoers. They beget sinners. They produce sinners. They're
a seed of evildoers. They're corruptors, forsaken
the Lord God. They provoke the Holy One to
Israel, to anger. They've gone away backwards.
He just goes on and on. They're unreasonable too. He
said in verse 5, if I whip them, they'll just run faster. He said,
if I correct them and they are stricken, they revolt more and
more, their whole head, their minds are corrupt, and their
hearts are corrupt. That's us. These are the kind
of people he is talking about. He says, they are totally depraved,
verse 6, from the sole of their feet to the top of their heads.
There is no goodness in them. Now, you fit in there somewhere,
don't you? I fit in there somewhere, don't I? And to beat it all, they're religious
sinners. You remember those verses I read?
They keep making prayers. And they keep burning incense.
And they keep keeping holy days. And they do all these things
professing a righteousness they don't have. I'm sick of their
holy days, and sick of their Sabbaths, and sick of their new
moons, and sick of their incense. And when they make these long
prayers, I won't hear them. Boy, we fit in there somewhere,
don't we? That's a description of us by birth, by nature, by
practice, by thoughts. But let me tell you something.
There is no sin or sins or transgressions or violations or wickedness that
my God will not pardon and will not cleanse except one. That's idolatry. That's exactly right. There's
only one. All manner of sin and blasphemy
shall be forgiven, but the blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit. What's the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? The
blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to reject and deny and refuse
to receive His message of the gospel through Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is sent to glorify Christ. to take the things of
Christ and show them to you. And that's what I told the men
in the study tonight. You know, a fella says, damn,
and somebody says, oh, you shouldn't say that. That ain't the problem. A fella takes a drink and somebody
says, oh, he's just a hell-bound sinner. That ain't the problem. And all this nitpicking, I wish
I could explain it, I wish I could proclaim it, I wish the people
could understand it. The root of sin, the seed of
sin is idolatry. It is refusing to acknowledge
and believe and bow to and worship the Lord God. I'm telling you
the truth. The issue between you and God,
Barnard said it 40 years ago. When he came into this nest of
religion and Pentecostalism and charismatics and fundamentalists
and all these people trying to put the swimming pools out of
business and the liquor stores out of business and everybody
else, all these things, and he said, the issue between you and
Almighty God is not you stole a watermelon, not that you took
His name in vain one time. The issue between you and God
is your hands are dripping with the blood of His dear Son. That's
the problem. That's the problem. We shook
our fist in the face of God and said, we'll not have this man
reign over us. That's the issue. And that better
be settled. You come, he said. I don't care
if your sins are as scarlet. I don't care if they're red like
crimson. I don't care if they're double-dyed. All manner of sin. Almighty God's taken up with
His glory. He's a jealous God. And that's
where we better do business. If you don't bow now, you'll
bow someday. That's right. Well, to what do
we call? Listen. Come now. I don't care about
how scarlet your sins are, how red like crimson they are. Here's
a promise. They'll be as white as the snow.
As white as the snow. They'll be like wool. As white
as wool. And I tell you this, that's no gradual
process either. It's right now. No, God doesn't
pardon a man gradually. I'm talking about, I don't care
about your past, I don't care about your present, I don't care
about your future. You come, God said. You come. I'm tender, I'm merciful, I'm
gracious. You come on. You acknowledge
who your God is. You acknowledge who your Lord
is. You acknowledge who Christ is. You bow to Him. And I don't
care if your sins are red like crimson or scarlet, I'll make
them white as snow instantaneously. This is no partial cleansing.
He can't have in His presence a partially cleansed sinner.
I'm talking about a perfect holiness, a perfect standing, a perfect
righteousness, a perfect pardon. And I tell you, this is no cooperative
effort either. You don't clean it up, He cleans
it up. You don't purge it, He does. You don't justify yourself,
He does. This is no conditional promise.
Come unto me, and though your sins be as skylight, I'll make
them as white as snow. If you do this, if you do that,
no sick, period. You come to me. I'll make them
white as snow. I'll make them white as the wool.
Come to me. Come to me. I'll give you rest.
Come to me. out of your bellies shall flow
rivers of living water, you come to me, come to me and live. I thought about this when I was
looking at that right there. It's not gradual, it's not partial,
it's not a cooperative effort. It's coming to Christ. Just like
I am, Charlotte Elliott said, without one plea, but that thy
blood was shed for me, I come. And he said one day, this came
to him, he said, I'm the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved. And I thought, there's the door,
there's Christ. And here I am, so ragged, and
so depraved, and so blind, and so deaf, and so wretched, and
so corrupt. I come to Him, and I enter that
door. And when I walk through that
door, Transformed. Child of the King. Sins pardoned. Sins put away. Sins forgiven.
Sight restored. Hear the voice of God. Walk with
Him. That's Sona. That's what he said. You come to me. I'm the door.
By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved. And he shall
go in and out and find pasture. Out of my bondage, my sorrow
and night, Jesus I come. What did he say? Let man stretch
forth your hand. He stretched it out, and it was whole. What
do you say to that man lying 38 years on the bed? Take up
your bed and walk. Take it up and walk. And that's
what he does for the invalid sinner, and that's what he does for the
paralyzed sinner. Come to me. You see that? All right, what shall be your
response? And that's my closing comment. There is the promise.
There is the one who calls. And what he calls us unto through
Christ's blood, through Christ's obedience, through Christ's sacrifice,
I'll make you as white as snow. Now then, verse 19, if you be
willing. Willing. Willing to what? Take
your place as a sinner. You be willing to disown any
merit of your own. You don't help him. If you'd
be willing to call on the name of the Lord Jesus to come to
him, if you'd be willing to confess him, if you'd be willing, cast
yourself upon him. He said, you're going to eat
the good of the land. And I'll tell you this, you'll
still be a sinner. You'll still be a sinner. You'll
still be a sinner until the day he puts that old
body in the tomb, and then you'll be a sinner no more. But he says, verse 20, if you
refuse and you rebel, if you refuse this call, if you refuse
this command, and I ask those who refuse, those who don't believe
what I've been preaching here, to whom shall you go? Shall I go to the church? Shall
I go to the front? Shall I go to the preacher? Shall
I go to the Lord? To whom shall I go? He has the
words of life. I tell you what I'm going to
do. I'm going to be willing. I'm coming to Christ again tonight.
I'm coming to Christ all over again. I'm coming to Christ.
I say, here I am. He said, come, and here I am.
I'm coming again. John Newton did. You've heard
the story of John Newton. Never been a more blasphemous,
rebellious, wicked man than John Newton. Oh, so wicked. You read
about it sometimes. His story is in there in the
bookstore. Out of the depths, is that it? What? Yeah, through many dangers. That
story. Oh, what a wretch he was. He came to Christ. He believed
this word right here. and sat down and wrote, Amazing
Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once
was lost, but now I'm found. I was blind, but now I see. He
just came to Christ. And that's the good news. He delights to show mercy. He
never turned a sinner away. Will he? Never has. That's one
thing that eternity will never experience, and that is To hear
a man say, I came, and he wouldn't receive me. No, sir. No, sir. He will. Delights to.

The Call of Grace

What does the Bible say about God's call to sinners?

How do we know that God's grace is sufficient for all sins?

Why is it important for Christians to understand God's mercy?

What does it mean to come to God for forgiveness?

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The Call of Grace

What does the Bible say about God's call to sinners?

How do we know that God's grace is sufficient for all sins?

Why is it important for Christians to understand God's mercy?

What does it mean to come to God for forgiveness?

Sermon Transcript

About Henry Mahan

Comments

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